Israel’s Netanyahu to Challenge Sharon to Lead Likud

Benjamin Netanyahu, the former finance minister who resigned to protest Israel’s pullout from the Gaza Strip, said today he plans to run against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and replace him as leader of the ruling Likud party.

Netanyahu’s announcement came a day after the Likud set a two- day meeting of its central committee for Sept. 25 to vote on a date for party primaries. National elections are scheduled for November 2006. They may be held earlier if the Likud decides to hold its leadership race as soon as this November.

“The Likud and the state of Israel need a leader that will stop giving terror a hand, stop the widening corruption, and heal the rift and gap in the people,” Netanyahu said at a press conference in Tel Aviv. “I believe I can do that. Therefore, I am announcing my candidacy for head of Likud and prime minister.”…

Netanyahu, 55, would win 47 percent of the party vote if Likud primaries were held today, compared with 30.5 percent for the 77-year-old Sharon, said a survey published on Aug. 24 in the daily Ha’aretz that didn’t say how many were questioned or give a margin of error.

“It is almost certain that Sharon will lose the vote,” said Sam Lehman-Wilzig, head of the political science department at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv. “It would take close to a miracle for him to win.”…

Netanyahu, who was elected after a wave of suicide attacks, has been accused by architects of the 1993 Oslo peace accords of failing to continue the process. “Oslo was an illusion of peace under the shadow of terror,” Netanyahu said. “I stopped the crazy race of handing of the land of Israel to the Palestinians.”…

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